Study Day Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Jan Haenraets, Acting Director of Preservation Studies, presented his reflections on meanings and symbolism in the paintings of London-based Indian artist Raqib Shaw, at the Study Day on Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Haenraets explored the natural and cultural landscapes of Kashmir as a component in the imagined landscapes in Raqib Shaw’s paintings, with thoughts on the valley’s horticultural and crafts traditions, Mughal gardens legacy and paradisiacal ideal.
The Study Day was organized in light of the February 15–May 12 exhibition with Raqib Shaw’s artworks at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The objective of the Study Day was for “Invited scholars – ranging from art historians with specialisms in the Renaissance and East Asian art as well as South Asian historians of Kashmir and conservators, [to] unpack the symbolism behind Shaw’s multivalent paintings – and untangle the complex socio-cultural contexts and histories of East and West that they reference.”
